Accelerators originally developed for scientific applications are currently used for broad industrial, medical, and security applications. Over 30,000 accelerators find some use in producing over $500 billion per year in products and services, creating a major impact on the economy. Industrial accelerators must be cost effective, simple, versatile, efficient, and robust.
Examples of industrial applications include radiation cross linking of plastics and rubbers, creation of pure materials with surface properties radically altered from the bulk, modification of bulk or surface optical properties of materials, radiation driven chemistry, food preservation, sterilization of medical instruments, sterilization of animal solid or liquid waste, and destruction of organic compounds in industrial wastewater effluents.
Many of the above industrial applications require high-average beam power. A major design choice for high-average power, compact superconducting radio frequency (SRF) accelerators is the choice of radio frequency (RF). As the frequency goes up, the size and weight of an SRF accelerator decreases. However, as the frequency goes up, the SRF cryogenic cooling requirements grow with the square of the frequency leading to the need for large cryogenic systems that, without additional technological advances, outpace the gains in going to higher frequencies. Until recently, the mitigation approach was to adopt low frequencies (e.g., ˜350 MHz or lower) that in turn lead to large physical size and weight for the cavities, cryomodule, and the required radiation shielding.
Accordingly, methods and systems providing improved compact SRF based accelerators are required that avoid disadvantages associated with prior art approaches.